A long-running case over the killing of two United Nations investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached a dramatic conclusion. A high military court has sentenced all 54 defendants to death over the murders, closing one chapter of a case that has drawn international attention for years.
The victims were experts working under the UN. They were Michael Sharp and Zayda Catalan, two investigators whose work in the country placed them at the center of efforts to document violence on the ground.
Their deaths date back several years. The two were killed in March 2017 while probing violence in central Kasai, a region that had been gripped by unrest at the time of their assignment.
The court set out how the investigators met their end. It found that they had been lured into a trap, accused of being traitors and then executed, a sequence that turned their fact-finding mission into a fatal ambush.
One defendant stood out among those convicted. Colonel Jean-Dieu Mbamueni received the death penalty on appeal, after judges ruled that he had played a key role in the plot against the two experts.
Despite the scale of the verdict, doubts remain about who was ultimately responsible. Rights groups say questions persist over alleged masterminds who were never prosecuted, leaving part of the case unresolved even after the sentences.
For the families, the ruling brought a measure of resolution but not a full sense of closure. The victims' relatives welcomed the decision, while saying that further investigation is still needed to establish the complete truth behind the killings.